True stories

Vilas Kane who made films like Just Another Death and Life on Seashore says that these films not only have an ‘impact’ but a ‘long-term impact’ on the minds of the spectators. No wonder that though his film Just Another Death that highlighted threat to snakes,frogs and other creatures on the western ghats,is shown in various schools even today. “Old documentaries and short-films that are shown on channels like Discovery or National Geographic still catch people’s attention,” says Kane,who is currently busy with a sequel of Life on Seashore.

According to Virendra Chitrav,director,Vasundhara Film Festival,it is a very good time for such films as people are gradiually becoming more aware of their surrounding and other potential hazards. His statement is backed by the remarkable fact that Vasundhara Film Festival that had participation from 25 countries had 600 delegations six years back has crossed 8500 this year. “Amongst the people who register for the festival,around 60 per cent are youngsters. This shows that visual literacy is spreading fast,” adds he.

He states example of films like Mindless Mining by Shekhar Dattatri and Green Oscar winner Vanishing Vultures by Mike Pandey. While Dattatri’s film dealt with the mining projects in Karnataka affecting various rivers like Tungbhadra,Pandey’s film was about the diminishing population of the vultures who used to feed on the cow that were given a particular drug. “The films got some rave reviews and the impact was so much that in Karnataka mining was stopped in that particular region and the government banned the drug that was used to treat unwell cows,” adds Chitrav.

Suparna Gangal of SMS productions,whose film Green Plaster was amongst the top ten films in the environment category in 2007 stresses that environmental films do make a great impact on the population who are set into some kind of routine life and thus are not aware of several issues related to environment. However,she says that the filmmaker should collect right factual details and deliver right data to the audience. “When you make a film that affects the common man on a local level,the film is bound to get noticed because they will be able to identify the issue and hence will be proactive at individual level,” she explains. As per Gangal the director should move away from his own style and consider the topic he/she is dealing with.

Recently she made a film titled Full Stop that talks about dumping of the garbage at Uruli Devachi. “Last year when the villagers of Uruli Devachi started protesting and the garbage wasn’t collected for a few days,it made me realise that my dumping of garbage was affecting somebody in a big way and as a resident I was wrong all these years,” says Gangal.

As far as award and recognition is concerned,many feel that they are a medium through which the films get noticed and reach larger audience. “When a film gets honoured,people get curious to know about the film and so the issue portrayed in the film too gets addressed,” says Kane.